#nagi clockwork

Disgaeatober 2024 Day 5: Modern World

hey. fukanagi

They really missed a chance to make Nemo’s backstory more compelling and tie him in with the main cast by making Nagi a completely new character imo.

Nagi is the sole survivor of her family, and grew up as a one-man force trying to stop the war. Everything she did was always in the service of stopping suffering, that would have made Nemo’s later goal of just eradicating humanity more heartbreaking. You saw that he tried to fix the world when he was younger and more naiive... and it didn’t work.

Nagi wasn’t aligned with Rekidona OR Gustark, but imagine if she had been Rekidonian and she had come to assume that Gustark was the perpetrator... and then she meets Sister Artina. One of the first people to join her in opposing the war, who doesn’t care what side you’re from. She meets Tyrant Valvatorez, and through his honor she learns demons aren’t an enemy either. She realizes, these problems are systemic, beyond individuals.

But then, Artina is killed because she was helping her. Not only that, but Valvatorez abandoned Nagi too, all his talk about the ‘order’ demons are supposed to provide was empty. She’s captured by Rekidona and persecuted as a spy, eventually escaping to Gustark (Artina’s murderers) only to be treated as a prisoner of war.

Yes these issues are systemic- but the system is rotten down to the individual. Humans are cruel, demons are lazy, and angels are a myth. In Nagi’s mind, Artina got no reward for all the things she did, she’s just gone. There was only ever one person worth saving, and she doesn’t even exist anymore.

Nemo doesn’t see himself as something worth saving, either... after all, Artina died helping him, back when he was too stupid to realize she was worth more than the whole world put together.